Image credit: www.theupcoming.co.uk
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 13 Nov
Noel Gallagher wound up his UK tour in business-like fashion at Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night, rattling through the pick of his High Flying Birds album and Oasis back catalogue with barely a pause for breath.
His determination to plough through as many songs as possible may have left the show lacking the usual warmth, charm and wit you come to expect from Noel – but he made up for that in spades by including a wealth of Oasis hits and rarities.
Noel set his stall out straight from the off, opening with a scintillating rendition of Oasis B-side ‘(It’s Good) To Be Free’. Further Oasis classics followed, including an acoustic version of ’Supersonic’, ’Talk Tonight’, ’Half The World Away’, ’Whatever’ and very rare performances of fan-favourites ’D’you Wanna Be A Spaceman’ and ’Angel Child’. All of which gave the show an air of nostalgia – with the capacity crowd belting the well-known lyrics back at the stage with joyful abandon.
Of the High Flying Birds material, the usual suspects of ‘Everybody Is On The Run’, ’If I Had A Gun’, ’AKA… What A Life’ and ’Death Of You And Me’ all stood out and were well-received, and the pounding outro of ’Stranded On The Wrong Beach’ provided a welcome rock-out moment.
As good as his more current material is though, the gig was all about the old tunes – a point that was rammed home during an awesome ’Little By Little’ and brilliant set closer ’Don’t Look Back In Anger’.
Here’s a few fan-videos of the gig from YouTube, some of the quality isn’t too great but they’re still worth a look:
